The statement below is attributed to the East Turkistan Government in Exile’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Security

On August 24, 1949, the leadership of the independent East Turkistan Republic was summoned to the Soviet Union under the pretense of negotiations. Three days later, on August 27, 1949, they were treacherously assassinated. Foreign Minister Ahmetjan Qasimi, Interior Minister Abdukerim Abbasov, Defense Minister and Commander of the East Turkistan National Army Iskhakbek Mononov, Deputy Defense Minister Dalelkhan Sugurbaev, and their staff, totaling fourteen individuals, were assassinated for refusing to surrender East Turkistan’s sovereignty and independence.

Their assassination, concealed beneath the false narrative of a “plane crash,” was a calculated act by the Soviet Union, in collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party, to decapitate the Republic’s leadership, disable its army, and prevent any effective resistance to the planned Chinese Communist invasion of East Turkistan. This crime permanently discredits Beijing’s narrative that East Turkistan “voluntarily joined” the People’s Republic of China.

The East Turkistan Republic never renounced its sovereignty, never consented to annexation, and never surrendered its independence. Our sovereignty was violently suppressed and held captive through assassination, betrayal, and foreign occupation, not by the will of our people. Seventy-six years later, the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile reaffirms its unwavering resolve to restore the sovereignty and full independence of East Turkistan.

— Salih Hudayar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Security of the East Turkistan Government in Exile